* A pound of man's flesh, taken from a man,
la not 80 estimable, profitable neither. As flesh of muttons, beefs, or Koiits.'
Shaks. M. of V. I. lil. 68.
RV retains all but Lv 22", AV ' a free-will otler- ing in beeves or sheep,' RV 'a free-will otlering of the herd or of the Hock.' The sing, does not occur in AV or RV, but the Douay Bible (1609) renders Dt 14' ' the pygargue, the wilde beefe (AV ' wild ox '), the cameloparde.' J. Hastings.
BEFORE, meaning 'in the presence of, occurs frenuentlj-, and as the tr° of a great variety of Heb. and Gr. words. Notice Gn 11^ ' llaran died before his father Terah ' ('j? Sy 'bcfure the face of,' RV 'in the i>resence of); Sir .'iC'' 'As thou wast sanctified in us before them, so bo thou magnified among them before us'; 39" 'He seetli from everla.sting to everlasting, and there is nothing wonderful before him ' ; Bar 2* ' Vet have we not prayed before the Lord.' In Gal 3" 'the Scrip ure . . . iireached before the gospel unto .Miraham,' the words are a lit. tr. of tlie Greek (Trpori'irD'*^''"""'' and b. = ' beforehand,' as RV. See Afork.
J. llA.-iTINGS.
BEGOTTEN — Only begotten is ihe tr" in AV and RV of mo-oy"")! at To 8", Jn l'«- '» S'"- '», He 11"
266
BEGUILE
BEL
1 Jn 4", all (except To 8", He 11" ' Abraham . . . oUered up his only b. son ') in ref. to Christ. The same Gr. word ia found in Lk 7" 'the only sou of his mother,' 8** 'he had one (RV 'an') only daughter,' and 9** ' he is mine only child.'
Firstbegotten is the tr. of npuTlyroKot in He \', iind in Rev 1' (both in reference to Christ), a word which is here by RV and elsewhere by AV and RV tr'' ' first bom.' It would have been more accurate if ' first-begotten ' had been given as the tr° of TpoT., and ' only-bom ' of /iov. The meaning of the latter ia indeed, as Westcott points out, obscured under the tr" 'only-begotten,' since in its reference to Christ it is the Son's personal Being, not His generation, that is the tliought. Both words exprsss the Son of Man's uniqueness among the sons of men, fj-ov. more absolutely than TTpur. , and more directly in relation to the P ather. See Thayer, NT Lex.; and Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lex. of NT Greek, t.w., and (esp. for rpwr. ), Light- foot on Col 1". J. Hastings.
BEGUILE.— 'To beguile' is to act with guile, to deceive ; but (like ' amuse,' which originally meant ' to bewilder ') it is mostly employed now in the sense of ' to charm away ' (care or time). This meaning, though as old as 1611, does not occur in AV, where on the contrary we find the word signifying directly to cheat, as Col 2'* ' Let no man b. you of your reward' (Gr. Karapfa^evu, from Ppa^ilov 'a prize,' RV 'rob you of your prize.' See the criticism of this tr. by T. S. Evans in Lot. and Gr. Verse, p. ilix). J. Hastings.
BEHALF (by his half, i.e. on his side, then as a prep, with a direct object, bihalf him) is used only in prepositional phrases ' in or on (his) belialf,' and (now almost entirely) ' in or on behalf of. ' * Until recently a clear distinction was pre- served between 'on behalf of and 'in behalf of,' the former signifying ' in reference to ' or ' on account of,' the latter only ' in the interest of,' ' for the sake of. ' t This distinction is preserved in AV. Tims, Ex 27=', ' it shall be a statute for ever unto their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel ' (that is, the beaten oU shall be a perpetual gift from or on the part of, rx?, the children of Israel) ; 1 Co 1* ' I thank my God always on your behalf ' (ircpl iiiiOm, RV ' concerning you '). But 2 Ch 16' ' the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong m the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him ' ; Ph 1^ ' in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to sutler for his sake' (RV 'in his behalf). But ' in this behalf,' or ' on this behalf,' inditlerently, as 2 Co 9" ' in this behalf,' 1 P 4" ' on this behalf ' (both (v TV liipei TovTip, TR, but in 1 P 4" editors prefer 6vbiJLaTi, whence RV ' in his name ').
J. Hastings.
BEHEADING.— See Crimes and Punishments.
BEHEMOTH (mons blh^mSth, perhaps for Egyp. f)-ehe-mau, 'ox of the water'). — The word is tr. in all passages except Job 40""'* as the plural of blh'm&h, with the signification of beasts. It has been suppoHe<i by some that beast (Ps 73^'), which is ill the original ocht'mCth, refers to the same animal as that in Job. But the first member of the paral- lelism in the psalm refers to ignorance, and the putting of the intensive plural bih(:nujth = beasts, in the second, would seem to condense into his folly all that is in the beasts. Otliers have supposed that blhfmCth negcb, the beasts of the south (Is